


Living on the Wrong Side of the Edge

by heikun



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: A bit of world building going on as well whoops, Fluff, Hamilton Gift Exchange 2k16, Humor, M/M, Rich Kid Boarding School AU, everyone is a disaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 08:57:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8660686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heikun/pseuds/heikun
Summary: Aaron Burr. Skipped a year, has a trust fund, and an astounding ability to have no stance on any matter.Alexander Hamilton. Wrote his way to a full scholarship, no concept of volume, incredibly dense sometimes.Life is always kinda strange when you live on school grounds for months at a time and all your friends can't tell a 10-dollar note from a 100-dollar one, but they're managing really well.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AozoraNoShita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AozoraNoShita/gifts).



> For the hamilton gift exchange 2k16; I got the prompt of my dreams tbh
> 
> I hope you enjoy this, aozora no shita, i had a great time writing this and i may have gotten a bit carried away,, sorry;;;
> 
> gist: everyone mentioned in the story is in year 11 (juniors) except for jefferson who is a senior, everyone is super rich except for alex, whose youth, scrappiness and hunger got him a full scholarship overseas, and everyone is snorting memes except for burr, who wouldn't know fun from crippling anxiety. school year starts in jan and ends in dec (i study in australia please give me a Break)

**January**  


 

It’s two weeks before school starts, and Aaron is already in his dorm.

 

He stares vacantly at the closed door, not exactly feeling the need to move and unpack when he would have two weeks to do it. Instead, he sits on his unmade bed and wonders whether this had even been a good idea. At the last assembly of 2015, Jefferson had stood up and asked for people willing to be part of the orientation program for oversea students. Aaron, not particularly wanting to spend more time than necessary in his uncle’s house, signed up without thinking. Now, the regrets were creeping in. He’d forgotten that the school wifi blocked illegal movie streaming sites.

 

Aaron stares around his room, It’s a twin room; there’s a wall right in the middle in front of the door, and the desks are flush against it. The beds are on either side of the room. It’s the most idiotic design he has ever seen for a two person dorm, but this way he and the other boarder could have as much privacy as possible. Honestly, Aaron wanted nothing more than to become a senior and get his own room to himself, finally able to lock out the rowdiness of the other boys in the house. Now though, it is so silent he can hear his watch tick, draining the seconds away. With a sigh, he drags himself to the bathroom across from his dorm to freshen up from the long car ride. The next day, he would wake up, meet the other members running the program, and then introduce thirty-odd students to their new life.

 

_Yes,_  Aaron thinks as he stares blearily into the pristine mirror, _what a new life this is._

* * *

 

Aaron first meets him during orientation; he’s been dragged to school early by Angelica and Thomas to help assimilate the newcomers to the boarding life. Moving through a crowd of very rich, very worried parents, he finally gets to a table with refreshments. Each glass cup has a thin slice of fruit on the edge as well, a pointless display of wealth amongst the many visible throughout the school. As he stood on the edge, sipping his weird passionfruit whatever-the-fuck, another boy stumbles through the crowd to stand next to him. The boy had his hair pulled up in a messy ponytail and wore a faded green hoodie with jeans. Burr watched him curiously as he picked up three drinks and downed them, one after another. The boy, probably feeling Burr’s confused gaze, turned to look at him as he gulped down a fourth glass.

 

“Hey, Aaron Burr,” The boy grinned, eyes flickering down to his name tag. Aaron takes the time to read the boy’s own name tag.

 

“Hello, Alexander,” He reads. _Alexander Hamilton_ , he thinks, _what a pretentious name._ Hamilton nods at him, seemingly recognising Burr from somewhere.

 

“Hey,” He begins again, “Are you the same Aaron Burr who wrote the paper on the correlation of wealth and social status throughout the 20th century?” 

 

Aaron blinks, because he was pretty sure that that essay had been taken by his teacher after she congratulated him on it and thrown in a dumpster somewhere. 

 

“That depends, where’d you read it?” He replies cautiously. Hamilton nods, as if he has to confirm his understanding of the question before he answers it.

 

“My old teacher, Hugh Knox, showed it to me amongst other papers. I thought that piece was particularly intriguing; sensing you managed to please many harsh teachers with it despite having little to no stance on the issue,” It’s barely been five minutes of meeting this man, and Aaron already knows he’s a rambler. He thinks he should feel insulted by the offhand comment Hamilton had made, but the man seems to hold no harm behind his words. 

 

“Thank you. I was pretty happy with how it was received,” He says, smiling carefully. Hamilton grins at him, and Aaron realises that he’s actually pretty cute. Big, expressive eyes and even more expressive eyebrows, along with peach fuzz and messy hair all wrapped up in one, Aaron thinks absentmindedly.

 

“I’ll be joining Year 11,” Hamilton continues, “I’m guessing you’re in Year 10?” 

 

Burr shakes his head. 

 

“Year 11, same as you. I skipped Year 9 and went straight to 10,” He explains, and Hamilton sizes him up, impressed.

 

“Wow, definitely the prodigy of the Princeton house indeed,” He whistled lowly, and Aaron felt himself flush. Princeton had been his boarding house in middle school; he wasn’t aware that people still referred to him like that other than his friends, who took the piss out of it anyway. The PA system crackled to life, and Thomas’ drawl sounded throughout the house, calling them all to the front for the tour to start. Hamilton takes a deep breath and stands a little straighter, before grinning at Aaron.

 

“Shall we go, Aaron Burr, sir?” He smiles, a bit too happy with himself for that rhyme. Aaron rolls his eyes at him and heads in the direction of the front, hearing Hamilton’s footsteps behind him.

 

 

**February**

 

It’s only been a week, and Aaron is certain IB is going to eat him alive and spit his remains out like they were cud. He’s taking four high levels, two of which are humanity subjects, and by the end of the first week he had already made his mind to drop Psychology down to standard level. He’s also fallen into a routine that is heavily involved with a certain Hamilton, since they have every single class together except for Literature. Hamilton had opted to do Lang Lit instead, because he got to write persuasive pieces. They weren’t in the same boarding house (He had been put into Ash while Aaron was in Lapis), but Aaron had had the fortune of being privy to the first meeting between Hamilton, John Laurens, and Hercules Mulligan.

 

**John Laurens**

 

_hey burr theres a new guy in our house saying he knows u_

 

_im in a double with him_

 

_god he talks_

 

_hes kinda cute u wanna come over and introduce us properly_

 

**Hercules**

 

_Burr come over to Ash ASAP Johns too awkward to talk to his new roommate_

 

With that, Aaron found himself in the common room of Ash, blocked out completely and holding baking utensils as John and Hamilton chattered, focused on nothing but each other. Turns out that he wasn’t even needed; Hamilton took one for the team and introduced himself to John first and quickly found common interests. Hercules invited him in anyway to help him bake. Hamilton’s voice was pretty loud, and he seemed to yell even when in close proximity. 

 

“Whoa, been here all your life? Someone’s fucking rich,” Hamilton gasped, a light tone concealing barely there jealousy. John did not notice. Instead, he shrugged.

 

“Dad went here, everyone went here. My sister’s here as well; she’s in Ixora. But she skipped Yorktown, went to a school near the city instead for a year,” John explained, leaning back onto the kitchen counter. Hamilton did not seem to comprehend. 

 

“What’s Yorktown?” He asked in confusion. John blinked, before smacking his head.

 

“Oh shit, you’re new to the lingo here. Don’t worry, we can explain it,” He gestured between Hercules and himself. Hercules nodded sagely, checking the timer as John launched into an explanation.

 

“The first year of senior school is generally Year 9, right? Well, in Liberty College, Year 9 is spent on another campus in the mountains called Yorktown. It’s a outward-bound school; you have normal classes and everything but you go on runs twice a week and hike on the weekends. And I don’t mean rich kid camping in a minivan hike, I mean _hike,_ ” John said with a grimace, evidently remembering some bad times.

 

“I was in John’s Hike Group for all of term 4,” Hercules chipped in as he took the cake from the oven, “God, there was so much banter between him and Charles Lee that John ended up spear tackling him off a mountain.” John let out a bark of laughter.

 

“Four day suspension; which meant I slept in my tent and had to run to the edge of the campus and back each morning or do manual labour,” He said proudly, “Didn’t regret a single fucking moment.”

 

Hamilton’s mouth had been open this whole time and he chose that moment to snap it shut wisely. John continued on.

 

“Going to Yorktown is kind of like signing yourself up for hell, but it really changes your outlook on life. I mean, one time we were told we got to sleep in until eight and I’m pretty sure everyone was crying with joy. We chopped our own wood for the boiler for hot water or the fireplace during winter; and at the end we ran a marathon through the mountains. Was all worth it to call ourself past Revos now. Oh, ‘Revo’ is the term they use for someone currently at Yorktown. Short for ‘Revolutionary’,” John finished his explanation with a huff. Hamilton blinked, and turned to Aaron.

 

“So you skipped Yorktown and came straight to senior school?” He asked, and Aaron was surprised that he even remembered their little talk.

 

“Basically, yes,” He said as Hercules coughs into his elbow, one that sounds suspiciously like ‘wuss’. Hamilton laughs, as if to say, _but of course._ His head falls back when he does, shoulders shaking in laughter as Aaron feels his soul lifting, drunk on the beauty that was Alexander Hamilton.

 

 

**March**

 

“Hey,” Aaron walks up to Alexander, who is sitting in the Lapis common room. They’re working on a Psychology assignment together, some informative poster thing. The minimum word count is supposed to be two thousand words, but Aaron’s is already five hundred words over and he’s sure Alexander has written double what he has. 

 

(He doesn’t know when _Hamilton_ became _Alexander_ , but he doesn’t question it and neither did Alexander.)

 

Alexander looks up at him blearily. It’s six-thirty in the morning, the only time they can meet since both of them have packed schedules until the due date. Aaron hesitates, then holds out the styrofoam cup he’d been holding.

 

“I got you coffee,” He stumbles over his words slightly, but the cup does not shake. Alexander looks at it curiously, before grinning and accepting the cup gratefully. He cups it with his hands, which have the hoodie sleeves pulled over them. As he looks into the cup, strands of hair fall into his face and Aaron resists the urge to do his hair up into a neat ponytail for once. 

 

Alexander watches Aaron take his seat to the left of him, and mimics Aaron in taking a sip of his own coffee. Ever since finding out that hard way that Alexander was deaf in his right ear, Aaron had made it a point to sit on his left whenever possible. He focuses on the twelve sheets of paper in front of him, jam packed with writing. Why Alexander still insists on handwriting his assignments escapes him; the essay in front of him is in tight cursive and possibly perfect if they were in the 1800s, but its 2016 and Burr will be damned if he has to edit this guy’s work like this.

 

“Hey, Alexander,” He begins and the other boy starts slightly. Aaron turns to him in concern, but Alexander seems to be concentrating very hard on a spot in front of him. Concerned, Aaron touches his hand hesitantly, snapping Alexander out of whatever reverie he had been having to look at Aaron properly.

 

“Is something wrong?” He asks, glancing down at the half empty coffee cup on the table, “Is the coffee bad? Sorry, I made it myself in our break room,” He winces slightly at his own sorry voice, but Alexander shakes his head vigorously and smiled at him, eyes still half-asleep as he drinks another large gulp of the coffee.

 

“Nah, it’s perfect,” He assures, before grabbing Aaron’s notes in an exchange. They sat next to each other in peaceful silence, reading, deciphering, and editing each others work until the sun was high.

* * *

 

That afternoon, Aaron was on his way to tennis when Hercules runs up behind him and grabs his shoulders. Aaron is sure he would have jumped two feet in fright, but Hercules keeps him on the ground. 

 

“What the fuck, Mulligan,” He begins, but Hercules shushes him. His face is deadly serious, and Aaron gets a little bit intimidated. He’s always slightly intimidated around the football player made of muscle, honestly. Hercules looks straight into his eyes.

 

“Answer me seriously, Burr,” He says, tone falsely calm, “Did you or did you not give Alex coffee this morning.” 

 

Aaron blinks. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that.

 

“Uh, yes?” He answers tentatively. Hercules groans a bit, but presses on.

 

“Did you put anything in it but straight coffee?” Aaron doesn’t know what happening, but he’s getting a bit annoyed. He’s never been late to tennis before, and it’s sure not going to happen now because a greek god is holding him hostage and questioning him on his coffee choices. 

 

“He seemed like he would like sweet stuff, so I put in quite a bit of milk and sugar. He must have liked it, he finished the whole cup,” Aaron says slowly, enunciating each word with a biting tone. Hercules blinks. Once, twice, then he doubles over in disbelieving laughter. 

 

“Holy shit- fuck, Burr, FUCK!” He crows, before grabbing Aaron’s hand and dragging him away from the tennis courts to the campus hospital, aptly nicknamed Cross by the students. Aaron yells in surprise, having to run to keep up with Hercules’ large strides.

 

“Mulligan, I’ve got fucking tennis!” He screams, the grip on his wrist cutting off all circulation to his right hand. Hercules ignores him.

 

“Alex is in the Cross, thanks to you,” He looks back at Aaron, with a face and tone suggesting that he was having way too much fun with the events unfolding. Aaron, however, was anything but. A sinking stone plunged though him and landed in the pit of his stomach. He swallowed, stumbling as Hercules dragged him.

 

“What do you mean, he’s in the Cross?” Burr gasps, already puffed from the stilted jog he was doing. Hercules turns away, grin still full of mirth as he slows down to enter the Cross.

 

“He’s whipped, man,” Hercules mimics the sound of whiplash, “Burr, he’s lactose intolerant. Like, super intolerant. And you know what he told me when he ran into my room begging for me to carry him to the Cross?” Aaron is too numb with the realisation that he had effectively poisoned Alexander to answer, so Hercules continues on.

 

“He said, quote-on-quote, ‘Burr made me coffee this morning and it was the most adorable gesture he’d ever done and I didn’t want him to feel bad for not knowing I can’t take lactose so I drank it all and now I’m dying.’” Hercules finishes, pulling Burr into the Cross, “So yeah, fuck your tennis.”

 

**May**

 

After the Coffee Incident, They were all dragged out to go to Monmouth by John, the town near the school. New York City was at least an hour away, so many students opted to go to Monmouth instead for the weekend. Alexander had grumbled slightly, but let himself be dragged around with them, on the condition that someone be holding him at all times.

 

_“I’m scared of getting left behind, Burr,” Alexander groans when Aaron jerks his hand away in surprise. John laughs and reaches his own out._

 

_“Come here, you nugget,” Alexander grabs his hand gratefully. He sticks his tongue out at Burr, but there’s no malice behind it._

 

_“I’m breaking up with you, Sharon,” He mock sobs. Aaron groans._

 

“We could be doing so much work, but we’re _here_ , in a _hole_ ,” He complains, and Aaron rolls his eyes as they wait outside a weird lingerie shop that John and Hercules are wreaking havoc on. 

 

“We get to buy food, Alexander. And coffee. That doesn’t have dairy in it,” He added quickly, and Alexander laughs. They’re holding hands, and Aaron is surprised to find it comfortable. It keeps Alexander from running away to whatever he finds interesting as well.

 

“That would be nice,” Alexander smiles, and Aaron feels his heart fly. He’s not sure what they are; Alexander had gotten himself intense stomach problems to avoid making Aaron feel embarrassed, and Aaron was spending way more time in the Ash common room than before. Their friendship is… Nice, Aaron thinks. Alexander is extremely smart with a brilliant work ethic, and while he can be annoyingly arrogant, he has his own moments that make Aaron feel his heart in his ears. Like now, when Alexander smiles with his eyes and his hand is in Aaron’s and _Oh God_ he’s definitely slightly attracted to Alexander. 

 

Hercules and John finally emerge from the store triumphantly grinning, and the moment is lost to high fives and sexy mens underwear.

 

** June **

 

Alexander texts him to meet him around the back of the music school one warm night. Burr approaches hesitantly, barely able to make out the figure leaning on the side of the music school. There’s a dim yellow light escaping from the gaps in the blinds, and Alexander’s face is illuminated in glory. Aaron almost forgets to breathe, but he clears his throat instead in an attempt to get the other boy’s attention. Alexander turns to him, face pensive. He’s quiet, something Aaron latches onto because it’s so unusual, so different. _Quiet isn’t a bad thing_ , he thinks privately, _Alexander should try it out more often._

 

“Hey, Aaron,” Alexander says finally, pushing himself off the wall and walking towards him. Aaron nods in reply. Alexander’s face is thoughtful, but his eyes keep darting around, focusing on Aaron, then behind him, then the ground. He had always been such an open book, and Aaron had always secretly thought that they balanced out perfectly. Him, the secretive, logical half. And then Alexander, the passionate, open one of the pair. He always overanalysed every moment he had, and always looked at everything from a perspective so far away from others that he would see all arguments yet understand none. But now, with Alexander in front of him, a dim backlight catching on all the goddam stray hairs that fell out of that messy bun, Aaron wants nothing more than to stop thinking. 

 

And apparently, so does Alexander.

 

Their lips touch before Aaron can even move, Alexander leaning up to close the distance between them. It’s not a innocent brush of lips, but it’s not a sexually-charged one either. Alexander has surprisingly nice lips, and Aaron is hyperaware of his own chapped ones. He’s kissing back, hands awkwardly gripping onto Alexander’s arms. However, he feels strange as they move together, as if what they were doing was unnatural. Aaron pushes Alexander away gently, a twist in his gut.

 

“Wow, okay,” Alexander stammers out, and Aaron knows there’s no stopping him now that the floodgates have burst.

 

“So, uh, Herc said he’d flip my bed if I didn’t at least do something, and I’m not a Revo, I have the arm strength of a sad spaghetti. But I wanted to, so it’s not like he was peer pressuring me or anything. I thought about this a lot. You and me, I mean. I, uh, even wrote you some sonnets. Granted, they were done at 3am and I’m pretty sure I compared you to an AMPA glutamate receptor at one point, but the point stands that I think I am possibly attracted to you. And that just now, uh, sorry if it was _super_ sudden but I really wanted to kiss you, I’ve wanted to for a long time, and I don’t know where this is going but I just thought I’d let you know that my current romantic interests happen to include Aaron Burr, you, and you,” He rambles, spiralling off into an abyss of words and pacing around. The air is somewhat sticky, and Aaron is finally done with trying to untangle his emotions.

 

“Alexander.” The other boy stops pacing and jerks his head up, like a deer in the headlights of anxiety. Aaron chooses his words carefully.

 

“I really appreciate you telling me,” Alexander’s face falls, and Aaron hurriedly backtracks.

 

“I feel the same. I’ve been fascinated by you for a long time,” He says, and Alexander’s face is blank.

 

“It’s alright if the feeling isn’t mutual, Aaron,” he says slowly, but there’s a glint of hardness in his eyes. Aaron feels his heart plummet into hell; he’s never been able to say the right thing, or choose correctly. _Talk less, smile more_ , he chanted throughout his life, choosing to live on the outside of opinionated lines until he no longer had the skills to assimilate back. And now he has Alexander, _Alex_ , in front of him and everything he’s ever wanted, and even now Aaron cannot just speak his mind. He slumps slightly, and Alexander sighs.

 

“Never mind. I knew it wasn’t a good idea anyway,” He mutters, eyes trained on the ground as he brushes past Aaron, “See you tomorrow, Burr.”

 

Aaron hadn’t known how much his own last name could hurt him.

 

**August**

 

Boarding school is full of surprises. 

 

Aaron had expected that nothing would ever be the same between them after the kiss, and he had been right. 

 

For two weeks, at least.

 

The things about boarding school is, there’s no way of being alone. There’s people everywhere, and the people you live with become your friends, whether you liked it or not. Burr had been so incredibly fortunate; he had people in the boarding house who at least knew him, and helped him out if needed. In particular, there was one very attractive, very French exchange student who had sailed back into his life via private yacht and mended all his relationships.

 

Lafayette had at least eleven names, and always put his full name on essays to reach the word count. He had been a french exchange last year, but decided to come and study in Liberty for good, surprising everyone with his arrival in the second semester. Laurens and Hercules were definitely crying in happiness when they saw him, and even Thomas had emerged from his cave of chemistry notes to greet him. Sadly, he had not been in placed in Ash, but instead was in Lapis with Aaron. That did not deter him being in Ash every waking moment of his life, and then in his dorm with Aaron the other times. In a short period of time, Lafayette had been caught up to date with All Matters Concerning Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton's Fuck Up, and dedicated himself to fixing it.

 

“I am , how you say, that fat baby who has a bow,” Lafayette proclaims one day, hand flapping in a _you know what I’m trying to say_ way, “A connoisseur of _l’amour_ ,” He laughs as he drags Burr to Ash. Aaron hadn’t stepped foot in there since that night, choosing to spend time with Madison trying to coax Thomas out to eat in between assessments. Third term had rolled around and Aaron had dreaded it; having to go back and try to ignore all those whom he believed to be his friends having fun without him. Thank god for Lafayette, who was acting as a middleman and telling Aaron things that Alexander would do that would prove how he missed him. Of course, it probably went the other way as well, but Aaron shoved that thought down.

 

The Ash front door was foreboding, and Aaron almost wanted to turn around and go straight back babysitting his very stressed senior. Lafayette held his shoulder so firmly that Aaron swore he could hear his bone disintegrating slowly. Slowly, they stepped into the building. Aaron let Lafayette guide him to the common room, each step heavy with dread. His feet were like molasses, and if it wasn’t for Lafayette grounding him Aaron was sure he would have fallen to the floor ages ago. They stop suddenly, and Aaron looks up in surprise to find that they’re standing in the common room, with John, Hercules, and Alexander mid-conversation.

 

_Alexander._ His mind is already whirring with a thousand options that he could use; an apology, reciprocation, bluff, etc., but Lafayette was already alerting them to their presence. They look up and he feels Alexander’s eyes meet his and for a second, Aaron’s mind goes blank. And instead of the panic he feels when it happens, a sense of calm fills him. Alexander is looking at him and he’s not smiling, yes, but he’s not hurt or angry either. _He’s waiting_ , Aaron realises. _Oh how the tables have turned._

 

So, true to his thoughts, he pulls a Hamilton and talks, throwing neutrality to the wind. His eyes are locked with Alexander’s as he tells him everything, everything he wanted to say that night and all the times before that as well, all the _I think I like you’_ s and the _I was scared_ ’s. And finally, Aaron runs out of steam and snaps his mouth shut. He doesn’t break eye contact, but he’s now aware of the other three in the room and it’s getting kind of awkward. Hercules is whispering something about Burr having said more in the last five minutes than he has in the entire year. Alexander is still blank. He seems to search Aaron’s eyes for something, for the truth perhaps. Whatever it is, he finds it and a cheeky grin spreads across his face as in true Hamilton fashion, he replies.

 

“Consider yourself un-dumped, Sharon,” He smiles and Aaron laughs.

 

**November**

 

Exams are arriving, and everybody’s stressed. Hercules keeps wondering what’s going to be next as John yells at him to _fucking check his timetable for once, goddamn_ and Alexander doesn’t sleep for a week until all four of them (read: 90% Hercules 10% Laf, John and Aaron) wrestle him into bed. Exams were a great time to see everyone you knew fall apart.

 

It’s also a great time for realising the nice things in life, Aaron gets to know.

 

There’s absolutely no change from their actions during friendship when they become a couple, he realises one morning when he’s heading over to Ash to hurriedly compare answers on the Political Science practice exam with him and John. He had finally managed to make it clear to Alex what qualms he had about kissing, and Alex, while crestfallen, had understood. Alex had also finally gotten him to call him ‘Alex’ instead of ‘Alexander’, which Alex had agreed sounded much smoother, but argued that it was too long and a waste of breath. They had a lot more physical contact as well, but anyone who looked at them would just think that they were incredibly good friends.

 

He enters the common room of Ash to the sound of sizzling and the smell of cooking. John is at the kitchenette with the toastie machine on. He is not making a toastie, as one would expect when you use a machine created for the sole purpose of making one, but scrambling eggs instead. Aaron shoos away all thoughts of telling him to learn how to actually use the stove and instead greets him.

 

“Hey, Laurens. Have you seen Alexander?” John looks up at him briefly, before going back to his eggs with a nod.

 

“Yeah, he went to the bathroom. He’ll be back soon. You want an egg too?” He asks, and Aaron declines politely. They are looking a bit burnt from his angle after all, even if Aaron doesn’t want to jump to conclusions. Alex chooses that moment to walk in, bursting with news.

 

“John, Aaron, my bowels have spoken. I’m still lactose intolerant,” He drawls sarcastically, as if he had had to deal with Seabury for more than three minutes. John snorts, piling egg onto a plate. 

 

“For someone with a 4.0 GPA, you are surprisingly dense,” He remarks, carrying the plate over to where Aaron is sitting. Alex follows, still muttering about how it was unfair and that feta cheese was the best goddamn thing he’d ever eaten. He sits directly onto Aaron’s lap.

 

“Oof,” Aaron grunts eloquently, and Alex smiles at him, expressive eyebrows high with glee. 

 

“Morning, Sharon. Hey, did I ever tell you that Sharon would be your middle-aged white mum name?” He asks, and Aaron good naturedly pushes him off to sit in between John and himself, directing him to the burnt egg meal. 

 

“Only thirty times,” He replies as Alexander proceeds to poison himself with John’s cooking. It’s remarkable; Alex’s stomach is iron and bulletproof, but when it comes to lactose it revolts so intensely that he can speak freely with the girls on the topic of cramps. He prods Aaron’s mouth with a spoonful of charred yolk, and Aaron accepts his fate for the sake of seeing Alex’s smile mischievously. John groans at them.

 

“Fuck off, it’s too early to see sappy things,” He whines. “Can we get back to politics? Please?” 

 

Alex rolls his eyes but picks up the exam anyway, and Aaron is hit with a sudden rush of thankfulness, for having a boyfriend who didn’t care if they didn’t kiss, and who treasured their relationship because it was Aaron, not because of what they did. He knew that Alex could be so much more intolerable; they’d seen each other at their bests and worsts. This right now, in the common room studying, was where they both understood each other the most. And Aaron is so, so grateful for having someone who understands him like that, no matter how much they differ in everything else. He thinks back to a tired reflection months ago, before Alexander Hamilton tore his life a new one.

_And what a new life this is indeed._

**Author's Note:**

> everything that happens that isnt romance is something that i have experienced in my time at a boarding school btw its a wild fuckin ride
> 
> i hope next time i can include some schuylers and maria as well hnn,,


End file.
